


Take the A Train

by onvavoir



Series: Teumessian Fox [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 15:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4185723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onvavoir/pseuds/onvavoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Music is a powerful trigger for emotion and memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the A Train

Matt's taken to sleeping on the righthand side of the bed. It was initially a deliberate response to Bucky's night terrors. He asked Matt to sleep further away from the metal arm, just as a precaution. In case he lashed out. He never has. He's never felt unsafe around Bucky-- although Matt may have a slightly different baseline for  _unsafe_ than the average person.

Bucky does talk in his sleep. He wakes up shaking, crying, with his teeth chattering as if the room is a freezer. He thrashes and says _no_ over and over again. Matt murmurs in his ear, "You're okay, it's okay, I'm here, it's Matt" until Bucky relaxes or until he gets out of bed to stare out the window. Matt lies there and listens to him. Sometimes he gets him a cup of tea, and sometimes curls around him while he sobs himself dry. 

He's not sure when he started sleeping on the right side of the bed even when he's alone. Perhaps after the first few times Bucky came in via the roof and climbed into bed with him. It happens more now. It's a kind of spatial assumption, an emotional dip in the mattress, and he's not all that comfortable with what it implies. He's even more uncomfortable with how much space Bucky occupies in his head at times like this, the little hours of the morning. He gives up on sleep and gets out of bed, scrubbing a hand across his face.

As he sometimes does on sleepless nights-- the ones he doesn't spend sprinting across rooftops and getting the shit kicked out of him-- he flicks through his records. Each one, neatly labelled in Braille, in alphabetical order by artist. He doesn't even really need to run a fingertip across the labels; he knows by now which one he's pulled out based on how far back it is. Six: Coltrane. Ten: Davis. 17: Lunceford.

He supposes it's a little perverse to like records given the sensitivity of his ears, but there's a warm texture in the crackles and pops. They're white noise, just enough to distract him from everything else he can hear, as unique and identifiable as fingerprints. He knows them like he knows the opening notes to some of his favourite songs.  A hiss and two pops before the first bars emerge from the stereo, just like always. He smiles a little.

Someone's coming down the stairs from the roof. Matt cocks his head until he's certain it's Bucky, then turns his attention back to the record and its aural landscape.

"... I know that song."

Matt raises his eyebrows, looks over his shoulder in Bucky's direction. He hadn't been thinking about that when he'd put it on. Had he?

"I guess you would, wouldn't you."

"I remember. I liked it."

It remains a surreal and incomprehensible thing: Bucky's existence in two disparate time periods. More than two, really, but Matt doubts there's much he wants to remember between flash freezings. He certainly doesn't talk about it, even when he does open up a little. It's a dark lacuna in what he knows about Bucky, Bucky back then and Bucky now. He's not sure he ever wants to fill it. His world is full of darkness already.

Bucky walks up behind him, slowly.

"We went out dancing one night, Steve and me and these two... dames? Girls."

"I think they prefer 'women' now."

Every once in a while one of those anachronisms pops up in mid-stream and makes Bucky pause as he grapples for the 'right' word. It's kind of charming, the way it is when Steve does it, but it also makes Matt a little sad. He waits to see if Bucky will elaborate, wary that the memory might set off a cascade of feelings neither of them is equipped to deal with.

"Well. I say 'we' went dancing," Bucky says, and Matt catches the way the G falls off the end of the word sometimes-- _dancin_ '-- when Bucky talks about things from before the war. "Steve said he wasn't feeling well and went home early."

"And you and the ladies?" Matt asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Tell you the truth? I don't remember. I'm pretty sure I got stupid drunk. Might've gone home alone."

Bucky's breathing hitches, and Matt turns around. He brushes his fingertips across Bucky's face and thumbs a tear away.

"Do you want me to turn it off?"

Bucky shakes his head. "No. I wanna hear it."

"Okay. Let's sit down then."

He leads Bucky to the sofa. The bionic arm pulls him in, and Matt lets himself be wrapped up in a hug. He presses his lips to Bucky's flesh and blood shoulder. They stay there, still, until the record stops and Matt gets up to turn it over. He comes back, kisses Bucky's forehead, then drops back into the warm curve of his synthetic arm.


End file.
